Figueroa Mountain Brewing Co.

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The interior of this place is quite nice, good wood motif, decent amount of seating and to-go bottle list selection was also cool. Few of the pluses: They do flights for $8 for four 4. oz pours (which is a good deal imo). They also sell a lot of the bottles they're pouring there. If they don't have bottles of it this place has a crowler canning machine and the beertender informed me they would do fills of any of their beers on draught (though that some would be pricier than others, obviously.)

The cons of this taproom are the location, there's just nowhere to fucking park! My father and I came on a Monday around 1 PM in the afternoon and there was literally NO parking. I would expect it on a Friday evening but at this hour it's a bit ridiculous. I feel like in order for this taproom to truly be good it would need to move somewhere where there's enough parking or buy up some more space for parking because the inconvenience of getting to this taproom makes me not want to return.

Really nice place for high quality beers and excellent vibe. We stopped off before hitting our hotel for a few beers. We had the Danish Red, Black IPA, Imperial Brown and Bohemian Pils. All were solid with the Black IPA being outstanding. We will be back.

The main brewery is a must stop if you are in the area. They usually have at least 10 of their beers on tap and some bottles for purchase to go. There is seating inside and patio seating outside. I believe they offer tours of the brewery at certain times. Service has always been pleasant but it can take a while to get beer if they are busy.

Visited the Santa Barbara location. Full selection of the beers while watching nfl football. Ordered food through bartender from lucky penny which has great pizza. Excellent afternoon of beer and food. Great service.

I can't stop in any town in America without paying a visit to a local brewery, and of those in Santa Barbara, this is the one I was most interested in checking out.

When I arrived with the family, the place was packed and a band was rocking out, making for a very loud establishment. No biggie, but surprising considering it was the afternoon.

As I usually do, I start with a flight for myself and find the sweetest beer available for my wife. My wife wasn't crazy about the wheat beer I chose for her, but I found plenty to like with the flight. Based on what I recall and a little help from the Untappd app, here's my impression of the beers I tried:

Lizard's Mouth- A Double IPA. I enjoyed this and found it very easy to put back. It was well-balanced and, surprisingly, wasn't the typical West Coast Hop Bomb. It was still very approachable. 4/5

Monkey's with Typewriters Rye- As the name suggests, this is a rye, and a decent one. My recollection is that I wasn't getting the rye spice that I wanted and that the hops were pretty subdued as well. Still, it was good enough. I gave it 3.5/5

Stearn's Irish Dry Stout- This isn't a style I don't see too much, but I did enjoy it. I recall a strong dark malt presence and hints of coffee with almost no sweetness. 4/5

Big Cone Black Ale- This was good and it required a second, full, pour. A moderately hoppy beer with dark malts that provided some hints of chocolate and toffee. 4/5

Davy Brown Ale- This was a run-of-the-mill brown ale. I enjoyed it, but didn't find anything unique about it. 3.5/5

Also, while up north in the town of Cambria, I had a pour of Fig Mountain's 3rd Anniversary Stout. The beer was very robust and complex in its flavors, with lots of oakiness, chocolate, vanilla, toffee and coffee notes (it's a stout and I believe it's aged in bourbon barrels, although I didn't detect a lot of bourbon notes, but I'd just had a Bourbon County before trying this). The beer was tasty and I'd certainly have enjoyed more, but when I was at the brewery they only had it in bottles and it was selling for $23. Whoa! Fig Mountain, I like your stuff, but there are a number of barrel-aged imperial stouts I like much more and some as cheap as $9 a bottle, so I couldn't justify this price. Anyway, the beer has sold well, so the locals are happy.

Finally, the service was friendly enough, so no complaints there. I don't recall seeing food, so beware coming hungry.

Buellton location -- I believe they have a location in Santa Barbara, too.

I visited on a late Sunday afternoon in early August (in case there are seasonal effects).

I stopped in while in area primarily for wine tastings. It was a pretty standard bar area with excellent beers, friendly people and helpful and knowledgeable service. I bought a few bottles to bring home -- I would have happily bought much more but shipping home from California adds a lot of cost per bottle.

I did not try the food while we were there, although we eat at Gino's pizza which delivers there. The pizza was very good recovery food from a hard day of tasting.

I just visited on Saturday night over Memorial Day weekend. We arrived before 6 PM and the place was packed. Getting served was no trouble. The place seemed to be pretty well staffed. A few different employees took the time to chat with us during our visit.
They were out of their Hurricane Deck DIPA (draft). There were plenty of bottles so I grabbed one and walked it up to the bar for an opener. I was told no bottles could be opened / consumed on premises. :(
Oh well. We had to go back across US 101 and and drown our sorrows in Dbl Jack at Firestone instead.
BTW The desk clerk at the Marriott gave us a beer tasting map that has several local stops.

It's located in an unassuming, non-touristy area of Buellton. This place has undergone an evolution of sorts, with more change expected in the near future. It's owned by a local person, which has it's advantages (e.g., in touch with the community) and disadvantages (e.g., less aggressive with investment for expansion). There have been recent additions of brewing equipment, which has made an already cramped space even moreso. When I first starting patronizing the brewpub (sometime around February 2011), there were never more than a handful of people there. With the beer's exploding popularity, it's nearly impossible to find a seat now on a weekend. The wait staff is always patient and attentive. However, there simply may be too few of them to handle the demand at times. The overall pleasant and patient personality of the wait staff parallels that of the manager, Dave, who is a British gentleman who has experience in the brew pub industry.

Fig. Mtn.'s mug club was a brilliant idea and has morphed into it's own fraternal sub-culture. There is certainly some envy of club
members without the conceit from members. There's plenty of
social involvement--even among members and non-members. While membership is exclusive, it is not necessarily the result of VIP, power, or wealth. It's more due to luck, being in the know, and perhaps being in the right place at the right time. The way it's been explained to me is that nearly immediately after the brew pub opened in Fall 2010, the waitlist for the mug club was pages deep.

Pints of anything Fig. Mtn. has are available. They have bombers to take with you and they also sell growlers at a reasonable price. But, the sampler flights are very popular. Particularly among non-mug club members and tourists. This gives you the unique opportunity to try all of Fig. Mtn.'s offerings for a very fair price.

Now, the brewer. AJ Stoll, a Santa Cruz Banana Slug and former dorm room homebrewer is a genius. He has created one of the most remarkable collections of artisan beers in America and, perhaps, the world. This is one of those rare occasions where a local business owner pairs up with a subject matter expert who likely far surpasses any expectations the owner had at the business's inception. Good for them and great for us, the consumers.

Lastly, I like that Fig. Mtn. is in an anonymous area of town, but I think a move to larger and, unfortunately, a likely more visible area is inevitable.

The Buellton rivalry (Fig. Mtn. v. Firestone-Walker) is on like Donkey Kong!

ADDENDUM: Figueroa Moutain has now added a beer garden to the east side of their building. All outdoors with some grass, fire pits, adirondack chairs, picnic tables, umbrellas for shade, a bocce ball court, horseshoe pits, and a stage for live music. This has immensely improved the atmosphere, hence my increase in the rating, in addition to the space issue that was becoming a problem. This has been an excellent addition.

Figeroa Mountain Brewing Co, in Buelton on Industrial way, just off the 246. If your near Solvang, the Firestone Walker tasting room, and or Anderson's Pea Soup, then your a mile or two from this brewery.

I believe they have been open just over 1 year. Anyhow, visited back on Labor Day Weekend with family & friends. We actually just walked from our camp ground at Flying Flags RV park, since it was 1 mile flat away. Place is towards the end of the road, on the right, in a rather large industrial warehouse, so seems they have room to grow. The space inside is decorated in a sort of old west/shed sort of way, with wood, aluminum siding for roofing over the bar, and a display on the history of barbwire, the west, etc.

The food is actually catered from the next business over, so menus of what can be delivered are around the tasting room.

There are about a dozen plus tables in the space, and they could probably fit about 50 or so inside. We all enjoyed the taster flight, which included a decent range of beers, from a oatmeal stout, brown ale, red ale, DIPA, IPA, pale ale, and pilsner. Would have like to see a bit more variety, such as maybe a barley wine maybe, but all the beers offered are also bottled I believe, so seems there model is to match that. They have a Hefe, so maybe other Germans styles will be made in the future (Dopplebocks, Kolch, or others perhaps?)

Pints, growler fills, and bottles are also available. Service was great, quick, friendly & attentive.

I enjoyed most of their offerings. Not yet world class in my humble opinion, (though they have won some medals, FWIW) but good, & above average, and another small local craft brewery, welcome for the area. Also happy that my local bar, which is not 2 hours away from me as this place is, has recently started to carry fresh kegs of their beers from them too.